It’s that time of year again when the courgette plants are producing masses of fruit. We only grew 4 plants this year but they appear to have done exceptionally well and every evening when I go to water the vegetable patch there is at least 1 more new one to pick. I try and cook to the ingredients I have to hand so I’m currently putting courgettes in pretty much everything. I have found that they make a fairly good substitute for meat, with last nights courgette curry going down quite well. I still have a fridge full of them so I’m going to need a few more ideas, I might make some more courgette chocolate cake.

Its been a year since my daughter started school in Reception class and I’m back at the school uniform shop. This time I’m shopping for youngest child who (gulp and hold back the tears) is starting his Reception year this September. It's going to be a massive shock to have both children going to school together every morning and it will be so quiet in the house during my working day on my own. Much as I wish for that quiet time now, as I have a chattering child with me I know I’m going to miss it so much. I’m certainly going to be seeing my baby into school with a tear in my eye, come September, but first we have survive the summer holidays, perhaps by then the silence at home will seem less lonely.

Having spent the last weekend in hospital with my 5 year old daughter I count ourselves very lucky to have such good healthcare facilities in the UK under the NHS. Having been up all night on Friday being sick and unable to keep down any fluids we called the NHS Direct phoneline on Saturday morning for advice. At this stage my daughter has been unable to eat or drink for more than 12 hours and was starting to bring up bright yellow liquid. The advice given on the phone was to immediately take her into A and E so we set off to the local hospital.

By the time we arrived nearly an hour later my daughter was still sick but was now bringing up green fluid, which I now know is a symptom of dehydration. The hospital staff were very quick to assess my daughter, she was given an x-ray as a precaution before being admitted to a ward. Shortly afterwards she was started on anti sickness meds and fluids to rehydrate her and we prepared for an overnight stay in the hospital.

She slept most of the evening and that night whilst the fluids did their work and the next morning work up almost back to normal and ready for breakfast. The breakfast trolley will forever remain the highlight of the trip as well as the hospital bear she was given to keep her company whilst on the ward, and which to her delight she was allowed to bring home with her.

Overall it was a fairly frightening experience for us as a family and an alarming wake up call as to how quickly a child can deteriorate when deprived of food and water. My lasting impression of the experience is how lucky we are to have access to such great treatment and such good doctors and nurses under our NHS.

We recently visited Stonepitts Farm with the children. It’s changed very little from my own childhood memories of the farm. You collect the containers and then spend as much time as you want filling them up with whatever fruit is currently in season.

Today it was strawberries we had come to pick. Although we have been lucky this year with a good crop from the garden I had wanted my children to experience the pick your own farm. We spent less than an hour filling up two large boxes of strawberries before heading back for a much needed ice cream. The children thought it was great fun and having turned the picked strawberries into one of my biggest batches of jam this year, we should have enough jam to see use through the winter and perhaps even beyond.

This past weekend was my sons birthday and unfortunately I woke up unable to function. Despite trying to carry on as normal it soon became clear after having been sick several times that I wasn’t going to make the much anticipated birthday party. The grandparents were drafted in to help and everything went ahead without me. I feel awful for missing the party but it made me wonder what others do that don’t have a local support network to fall back on.

Even in the days following the party it has been a struggle to get back to normal everything has to continue whether you are sick or not. Children still need to be taken to and from school and have their meals, bath time and bedtime at sensible times. I think the most difficult thing is that you don’t get enough time to recover from the illness because you are more focussed on the needs of the children. Missing out on much need reoccupation time means it takes longer to recover. Luckily this has been my first sick day since I was pregnant with my 2nd child nearly four years ago so it doesn’t happen often, but I do miss being able to call in sick to work and spend the day in bed. I guess parents don’t get proper sick days.

The courgettes have recently started bearing fruit and there seems to be a new one every few days. My favourite way to use them is always in pasta which we tend to eat a lot of. Fresh from the garden they really do improve the flavour of pretty much any pasta dish. With the tomatoes nearly ready I think that pasta is going to be on the menu a lot for the next few weeks.

I’m feeling a little envious when I see posts from other mothers who are able to spend the summer holidays taking their children on day trips or booking a break away. Being self employed means I still have to work as normal but with two children at home. It’s certainly challenging and only 4 days into the summer holidays I’m stuck between trying to work as usual and feeling guilty I can’t spend as much time as I want to with the children. So far they have managed to amuse themselves without too many issues but I’m sure the games will soon run out and it will be a struggle to find entertainment that they can do independently whilst I work. I wonder how others in the same situation manage it.

With the recent heatwave I have seen a number of reports of children being shut in hot cars whilst their parents go shopping. Having sat in the car for just five minutes with the car air con off waiting for husband I watched how the temperature quickly started to rise. How a parent can shut a child in a car for more than 40 minutes when the temperature outside is 30 degrees plus is anyone’s guess. I’m unsure why anyone would leave a child alone in the car to go shopping, to me it seems plain irresponsible but to do so on hot day is just dangerous and poor parenting. I’m glad to see that the children in the reported incidents survived but the outcome could have been tragic.

Twitter Updates

Disclosure
This blog may accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. Links to particular products and services, albeit reflecting the author�s opinion, may be affiliate link and may result in payment to the author. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.